Watching Paint Dry: Miss Mustard Seed's Milk Paint for Faux Scandinavian Charm

Watching this paint dry might just be the most exciting DIY project you do today. Except mixing it up! Miss Mustard Seed's Milk Paint comes as a powder that you add to water to create the paint. Watching the color emerge is part of the fun!

  Read about refinishing my husband's childhood rocking chair in Tricycle Red Milk Paint here. 

A few years ago some friends were moving and were putting this little chair on the street. I brought it home and spray painted it white. It's been having a useful life for a long time in the bedroom. It serves two purposes: 1. a place to put a large decorative pillow every night. 2. A place for us to sit and put shoes and socks on.

This wasn't exactly a tragic look for such a utilitarian piece hidden away in the bedroom but it wanted to be more than it was. It wanted to be a darling Scandinavian piece that would fit in with our bedroom inspired by a trip to Copenhagen, Helsinki, and Stockholm. 

Check out the before and after of the master bedroom in this post! 

Milk paint is non-toxic so I didn't have to be too worried about Mr. Cleo's curiosity. The chair looked better immediately after a coat of Miss Mustard Seed's Dried Lavender, a color that has been discontinued, unfortunately.

The exciting thing about Milk Paint is that watching it dry is actually fun! It has a natural desire to chip. See what I mean?

You can take any flat tool and scrape off the flaked paint. Note: The paint doesn't chip everywhere but unless you use a resist like beeswax you can't predict where the chipping will happen. You kind of have to be okay with that, but it is so worth it!

Come on. Live a little! 

This is how the chair gets used at night. I love the bold Scandinavian looking print on this pillow.

If I had wanted to invest more time and energy into this project I would have painted it first with Annie Sloan Chalk Paint so I could have used an aging wax over the finished product. I skipped that step knowing it wouldn't do anything for the slick spray painted finish. As always though, I sealed the MMS Milk Paint with clear wax.

When I was all finished I thought it would be a darling touch to use Modern Masters Warm Silver paint on the little details. This sent it over the top to where it wanted to be. Now it looks like some amazing find from an old Swedish home!

Or you know, a little faux Scandinavian bedroom in Tennessee.